‘I remember every detail’

PALMER — If you met Elann “Lennie” Moren today and didn’t catch a glimpse of her fading wounds, you might not know of the ordeal she went through only seven weeks ago.

But that’s kind of by design.

“I don’t want to be the machete lady. I don’t want to be famous for that,” Moren said Tuesday during a visit with her mother at the Palmer Pioneer Home. “Somebody said that to me today, ‘She’s famous! She’s the machete lady!’”

Moren, 56, was attacked with a machete early Dec. 2, 2007, by her fiancé’s son, Christopher Erin Rogers Jr., while the couple slept in Rogers Sr.’s Palmer home. Moren’s fiancé was killed and Rogers Jr. fled the home to Anchorage, where he allegedly shot three others, killing one. By the time his 26-hour violent rampage ended, police say Rogers Jr. had killed two people and three more, including Moren, were hospitalized.

Moren said she has been OK with being out of the spotlight during the first weeks of her recovery, but she decided to sit for an interview prior to her fiancé’s funeral, scheduled for this weekend at St. John’s Luthern Church in Palmer. She wants to let people know what a wonderful man Rogers Sr. was.

Moren and Rogers were childhood friends, and they met again in December 2006.

“We rekindled a friendship that turned into one of the most beautiful love stories that I’ve ever known,” Moren said.

Their bid on a new house was accepted the day the couple was attacked, and they were planning for their life together. Rogers Sr., she said, was a kind, supportive man. He was physically fit, a home remodeler who loved the outdoors.

“I know that he’s with his God. I know that he’s in a better place,” Moren said.

Once she’s recovered from her injuries, Moren said she wants to go to work helping people who have had “a life-changing experience.” And she wants to write a book — not about the attack, but it will figure into the mix. A former home healthcare assistant, Moren wants to write about being on the giving, and then the receiving, end of that type of intimate, daily healthcare.

Moren said her life leading up to the attack has helped her get through the ordeal so far. She lost a partner before when, in 1977, she became a widow. An early member of Standing Together Against Rape, she worked counseling sexual assault survivors. And she’s been on the receiving end of violent crime before as well. In 1992, Moren was mugged during a two-week stay in Paris and in 1999 she was car-jacked and kidnapped in Detroit.

Maybe all of her life’s trials have trained her in how to deal with terrible situations, Moren said. Or maybe, it’s just God’s way. He gives the toughest challenges to those who can best handle them, she said.

“I don’t see myself as a victim,” she said. “I see myself as a survivor.”

To talk to her, it’s hard to doubt it. Wheelchair-bound as she undergoes physical therapy, Moren periodically pauses in her conversation to jokingly challenge her mother, also in a wheelchair, to a race down the nursing home’s halls.

“My mother is 94 years old and one of the strongest women I’ve known,” Moren said, adding, “I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Holding up her left hand, missing two fingertips from the attack, she joked that she’ll be getting a 20-percent discount on manicures.

While she hasn’t lost her sense of humor, Moren’s life has been far from normal since the attack. She’s been in physical therapy, working to regain use of her injured hands and learning to walk again.

Her son, James Moren, who came with his mother to visit his grandmother, said financially Moren fell into a limbo between those who are poor enough to qualify for free medical treatment and those who are well-off enough to pay for health insurance. She had some money, James Moren said, but not enough to pay for the myriad of treatments she’s needed.

That night

Her upbeat demeanor doesn’t mean Moren hasn’t thought deeply and profoundly about that night.

“I remember every detail,” Moren said.

She remembers the first thing Rogers Jr. said to her and the last thing she said to him.

“Look what you’re making me do,” Moren said her attacker told her.

James Moren said that after the attack his mother pulled a “Jedi mind trick” on Rogers Jr.

“She looked him in the eye and said, ‘We’re dead, you’re done. You’ve finished your job,’” said James Moren, who wasn’t present at the attack, quoting his mother’s recollections.

After that, Rogers Jr. left.

“It was weird; it was like he obeyed me,” the elder Moren added.

She said that from the moment Rogers Jr. walked through the bedroom door she’s felt like she’s been in God’s arms. At times, God worked through others.

Moren credits various individuals for saving her life, starting with Bear, the 120-pound mastiff who chased Rogers Jr. out of the house. Then there are the ambulance crew, surgeons and nurses who did an outstanding job working to repair damage done by the machete.

“They didn’t expect me to come out of surgery. I bled out going in,” she said.

The Alaska State Trooper who talked to her as she was being loaded into the ambulance also saved her life. Moren asked the trooper if her fiancé was alive.

“He looked me in the eye and said, ‘You made it. There’s hope.’” Moren said. Hope for Rogers Sr., that is. “He lied to me and he came and apologized to me later.”

But there was nothing for which to apologize. He gave her hope, and that hope helped her survive, Moran said.

The help hasn’t stopped, either. Moren said since her injuries are spread over so many parts of her body — elbow, hands, feet, head — she has a team of physical therapists working with her.

Asked when she thinks she’ll be fully recovered, Moren said, referencing her goal to be on television, said, “I’m hoping to be dancing on the Ellen DeGeneres show next Christmas.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.